Researchers working with spatial data increasingly rely on authoritative basemaps, curated thematic layers and accessible climate information. Three Esri-affiliated resources, the Community Map of Canada, the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, and the Esri Climate Data portal, offer useful starting points for such work. This post provides a brief overview of each, focusing on their structure, utility and considerations for academic and applied research.

Community Map of Canada

Thumbnail images of all available basemaps from Community Map of Cadana

The Community Map of Canada (CMoC) is a national vector basemap assembled from contributions by municipal, provincial, federal and institutional data providers. It is updated on a frequent cycle and includes multiple cartographic styles (e.g., topographic, light/dark grey, imagery-hybrid).

For researchers, CMoC offers a consistent and regularly-maintained spatial reference for projects that require clear geographic context but do not need customized symbology or local cartographic design. Its value is primarily in reliability and coherence: streets, boundaries and place names appear in a uniform format across the country.
However, researchers should still check metadata and scale. For highly specialized analyses such as micro-scale land-use classification, local datasets may remain necessary. The basemap is foundational rather than analytical; it supports visualisation but does not replace analytical spatial layers.

The Community Map of Canada vector basemaps are available via Living Atlas in Map Viewer and Scene Viewer, as well as in ArcGIS Pro and configurable apps with a basemap gallery feature, such as ArcGIS Field Maps, and Survey123. The red maple leaf symbol indicates that a basemap is part of the Community Map of Canada. A vector basemap in the Topographic style is also available for offline use.

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World

The Living Atlas is a large, curated repository of global and regional data. It includes imagery, demographic datasets, environmental indicators, transportation layers and various thematic maps. Its primary usefulness for researchers lies in its breadth and metadata transparency. Many layers are immediately usable in ArcGIS tools, reducing time spent searching across numerous independent portals.

For Canadian research, the Living Atlas is particularly helpful when a study requires data beyond national boundaries or when combining Canadian sources with global datasets (e.g., satellite imagery, global human-footprint indices, international demographic data).

Nonetheless, the resolution and update frequency vary across layers. Some datasets are global rather than country-specific and may not provide the level of detail needed for fine-scale analyses. As always, researchers should assess methodological suitability before integrating layers into models or publications.

You can access ArcGIS Living Atlas data through ArcGIS Online Map Viewer or ArcGIS Pro by adding layers directly from the Living Atlas section. In ArcGIS Online, use the "Add layer" option, and in ArcGIS Pro, access it from the "Catalog Pane" or through the "Add Data" button, where you can search and filter layers by category or keywords

Esri Canada Climate Data Portal

The Esri Canada Climate Data portal provides not only historical climate information but also live and near-real-time hazard data that support monitoring and emergency analysis. The site includes dedicated sections for wildfires, floods, and extreme weather, each offering frequently updated map layers that can be integrated directly into ArcGIS workflows.

The Wildfire section features active fire perimeters, hotspots, and fire-danger indices, updated several times a day using data from federal and provincial agencies. These layers are suitable for situational awareness and for combining with local demographic or infrastructure data.
The Floods and Droughts section provides daily or near-daily updates on active flood areas, drought exposure, and related hydrological conditions. Researchers can overlay these with land-use or risk layers to support emergency response and preparedness planning.
The Hurricanes and Extreme Weather section includes recent storm tracks, wind-hazard footprints, and other weather-related layers, enabling analysis of severe events within broader climate-impact studies.

A searchable catalogue allows users to filter and browse all available applications, maps, and services. Overall, the portal functions as a dynamic hazard-monitoring resource, complementing long-term climate datasets with real-time environmental information.

Closing Notes

Taken together, these three resources provide a structured ecosystem: a national basemap (CMoC), a broad multi-topic data catalogue (Living Atlas), and a climate-focused repository for Canada. Each plays a different role in supporting spatial research. Their usefulness depends on project goals, required resolution and data provenance standards. For many researchers, they serve most effectively as starting points as reliable references that can be augmented with domain-specific datasets when analysis demands greater precision.

Three Essential Esri Resources for Canadian Spatial Research